Blood Flow'rs in Bloom
by PassionateBoleyn
Summary: It's been three years since the war ended, three leaderless years for the general wizarding population, and lonely ones for Hermione. She's tried to keep the memories back, and mostly succeeded. But the dam has broken, and the ghosts have come.


**_Blood Flow'rs in Bloom_**

**xXx**

_**Author's Note:** Hello, everyone! Thanks so much for reading this story; I hope you enjoy it! A huge thank you goes out to Maya, Teige, Barbara, Jen, and Abbey for making this story what it is. I couldn't have done it without you! I love you guys. Please, read and review. Thanks again. Enjoy._

**xXx**

Hermione went to make herself a cup of tea. _Tea, _she thought,_ will make me feel better._

She'd had another nightmare that night. About them. And there was no one to comfort her afterwards; not here, in her tiny cottage, deep in the Scottish wilderness, where a lawless land bordered on barbaric.

_But which was more barbaric? The way things are now or how they came to be so?_

The nightmare was the same one it always was. She was standing in a black void with everyone in a circle around her. They would smile and wave, but soon become solemn. Then they would start _growing. _Larger and larger until she could see nothing but their faces, until she they were going to crush her, they were so large, and she could hear nothing but their booming voices–

"_Get your hands off her!"_

"_I WON'T!"_

"_I have to..."_

– and then they would grow softer–

"_Too bad I didn't see–"_

"_I _won't _give in..."_

"_I'll see my parents..."_

– and softer...

"–_wish I wasn't leaving you..."_

"_I _didn't _give in..."_

"_It'll be over..."_

And then they would stop.

Hermione gasped and let out a dry sob. Her porcelain teacup fell to the floor and practically disintegrated upon contact, minute shards scattering in every direction.

_They were too close...They were too **real!**_

And yet...and yet...

Hermione knew she didn't want the nightmare to end. She enjoyed seeing their faces, immortalized by memories, shadowed by death. People said that they missed them, but none so much as her. She_ wanted _to hear their voices... _wanted _to feel their presences...and she _despised_ herself for it.

_Weak! _she thought brutally._ Weak, worthless thing!_

Yanking open a drawer with unnecessarily vicious force, Hermione found a pin. A plain silver one like those they had used in Transfiguration. As her loved ones of the past began to materialize before her waking eyes, she began to shake uncontrollably, unable to contain the emotion welling within her...

_Ron was the first one there. In that place. That sickening, hellish place where nightmares became reality. Draco was kneeling over her scraped, abused body, trailing his fingers across the cuts on her collarbone, the bruises on her barely covered breasts..._

"_One last night before they find us, Mudblood," he whispered, his voice somewhere between maliciousness and desperation. She squirmed underneath him, feeling an all-too familiar revulsion at his touch. "Just once more–"_

_But before he could make another move, Ron had burst in, wand forgotten in his back pocket, face a deeper red than his hair. Blue eyes nearly afire with fury, he screamed "Get your hands _off _her!"_

_Malfoy wheeled around, his wand pointed straight at the redhead. "She's mine, Weasel," he crowed. "She's been mine for a long time now."_

_And Ron– in his typical fashion that Hermione loved so well– did the only thing that would appease his rage, if only for the moment._

_He leapt and lunged at the blonde Death Eater...and then he fell. Malfoy's face was expressionless as he killed his schooltime rival, but Hermione's was not. As she watched her love arch gracefully in midair as he crumpled to the ground from where she lay, a scream as unearthly and inhuman as had ever been emitted from her. Not just from her mouth, but seeping from the very core of her being through every pore and cell._

_Harry and Ginny had arrived on the scene only moments later, and then they finished Malfoy. Harry howled in grief and aimed his curse too far to the left: it slammed into the cave wall, blasting rock into dust. But Ginny, who seemed to be full of silent rage, shot a curse swift and true. It was a glorious moment, or, at least, it should have been. His eyes full of fear, his face drained of blood... But Hermione felt no triumph. She crept over to where Ron lay sprawled on the floor, and held his face in her hands._

"'_Mione," he gasped, too weak to get out her full name. "Should've...should've stopped him. He _touched _you–"_

"_Sh," she said. "I'm here. I'm here. I'm alright. You saved me, Ron." She swept some hair out of his eyes with her fingers._

"_I love you," he whispered._

"_I know."_

"_Too bad it took me so long to realize it...too bad I didn't see–"_

"_Hush. Ron...I love you too." Tears dripped from her cheeks and onto his._

"_I just wish I wasn't leaving you..." And then he was gone. Stolen away by Malfoy's last curse._

Hermione yanked herself back, eyes wide and breath coming hard. _Ron... _She plunged the pin into her left forearm and drew it back up, like Malfoy had plunged himself into her so many years ago, violating her. Taking what should have been Ron's. A dot of blood appeared, tiny at first, but growing second by second. _I'm bleeding for Ron, _Hermione thought savagely. _Like he bled for me._

She tried to look out the window to calm herself down, make herself stop. The sun was just beginning to rise above the mountain peaks, turning the sky red with dawn.

_Red...like Ginny's hair._ And Hermione was gone again.

_They were hiding out in the wilderness, the three of them. Had been for months, now. Ginny was sick, Harry was worried, and Hermione was so, so tired. Exhausted. Merely living was the task of a lifetime. Ever since Ron died, all she had wanted to do was bury her head in her arms and fall asleep. Forever. He had been her sunlight, moon and stars, and had been her saving grace in so many more ways than one._

_But it was not to be. She tended Ginny by day and kept watch at night while Harry held a vigil by her bedside. Hermione did everything she could think of, but Ginny continued to fade._

_It had started with a stomachache. Simple, right? A stomachache. Maybe she had eaten the wrong kind of berry; these things were easily fixed. But then the stomachache came with stabbing pains inside Ginny's head. Next she became uncoordinated; not tired, but weak in an almost clumsy way. It was when she started to get delirious bouts of fever, making her limbs shake like mad, that both Hermione and Harry insisted that they stop and seek shelter in a cave until she got better._

_That had been almost three weeks ago._

"_Not like this," Ginny had said to her one day. "If I'm going to die, it's not going to be lying on a makeshift cot, sweating and screaming incoherently. I refuse! _I WON'T!"

_Realizing that Ginny was about to have another round with the fever, Hermione took a cool cloth and dabbed at her forehead. "Ginny," she said firmly. "You _will not_ die."_

"_I won't give in..." Ginny mumbled, sinking into a heated sleep. "I won't give in... I won't give in..."_

_A few more days passed, and Ginny's condition worsened. The times when she was conscious and understandable were becoming fewer and further between. Harry was now hunting for them during the day and keeping watch all through the night, unable to stand by and see his love's health deteriorate before his eyes. Hermione felt herself becoming increasingly desperate as the redhead continued to fade: Ginny, besides being one of the closest links to Ron that Hermione had, was probably the one person who had not first seen Hermione as a know-it-all freak, but as a fellow girl, and– most importantly– a friend._

_Then, one day, Harry didn't come back from hunting when he normally did. Sensing that something was wrong, Hermione got up from her customary spot at Ginny's side and went to the cave entrance. No one there._

It's alright,_ Hermione told herself, trying to squish the prickling sensation in her stomach_. He's just a little late. _She wandered out into the open._

_A flash of red light went soaring by her head. Ducking down into a bush just in time, Hermione managed to get a glimpse of her attacker in the glare of the jinx: he wore a black robe and a mask._

_Eyes darting, Hermione quickly noted that Harry lay Stunned, not dead, behind the Death Eater. It began to move towards the cave when another one stepped out of the shadows._

"_Don't!" it hissed. "Let _her _come to _us. _In the cave we'd be trapped; at her mercy, if she has a wand in there. Let's just find her out here, Stun her, and then go back for the youngest brat."_

"_But why can't we kill 'em?" whined the first Death Eater. "I wanna kill 'em!"_

"_The Dark Lord wants them alive," the second one snarled. "Do you still want to kill them?"_

_That was when Hermione made her move. Since she had left her wand in the cave, she used all she could: herself. Throwing her body at the masked pair, she managed to pin one to the ground and slammed her fist into its face. Its nose started to spurt blood as she hammered it, breaking cartilage, ramming it so far into the head that it brushed the brain. Leaving the dead Death Eater on the ground, Hermione turned to the other one. But before she could move, it had its wand out and at her throat._

"_Gotcha," it muttered, a wicked smile spreading across its masked features._

"_Gotcha, yourself," said a hoarse voice from the cave entrance._

_It was Ginny. She was trembling, thin, and sweating; she had to lean against the cave wall for support, but she was beautiful. Gripped in her outstretched arm was Hermione's wand. With a flash of green light that lit up the forest and shook the mountainside, the Death Eater fell to the ground, even deader than its companion._

_Hermione ran to catch Ginny as she started to fall. "Ginny," she cried. "You– You're–"_

"_I...told...you..." Ginny gasped. "I told you I wouldn't give in." Hermione laid her on the ground, unable to support her weigh unassisted any longer_. _"I...I _didn't _give in." And then her eyelids fluttered, and closed forever._

Without even thinking what she was doing, Hermione– back in her cottage– punctured the skin on her forearm with the needle again, trying to find a way– any way– to just let the emotion out of herself, like air goes out of a balloon. Another red dot appeared, minuscule but brilliantly outlined against the white of her arm. _Every rose has its thorns, _she thought as she stared at the speck of blood. _Ginny's only one was that she was taken too soon. _And Harry...

Harry had really lost it after Ginny died. They got back to Hogwarts, where he spent weeks in the hospital wing with no ailment. None, that is, except a breaking heart. Hermione felt a comradery like never before pass over them: they were both missing half of themselves, and so were merely shells of what they had been.

The Last Battle was hailed in history as a wondrous, victorious event. To Hermione, it was a symbol of bloodshed and lost hopes; last gasps and early deaths. She had been there, of course, but not as a fighter. She'd had enough of fighting, and dueling was never one of her stronger suits in any matter. A nurse, it was decided, would be her role, and she played it well: calm and gentle. But she had allowed herself one moment before it started to give voice to the growing panic inside. That day, inside Harry's tent after he met with his generals– Kingsley Shacklebolt, Remus Lupin, and Mad-Eye Moody– for the final time had been Hermione's last opportunity to save the savior.

"_Harry...please don't go. Just– just don't do. Please."_

"_Hermione," said Harry, sounding weary but not altogether shocked. "I have to."_

"_Why?" Her voice rose in pitch. "Why _you? _Haven't you given enough? Haven't we all? We don't deserve this! You don't deserve–" She turned away, unable to continue._

"_Hermione..." he moved closer to her. "I don't mind death, now. I think, at this point, I'd even welcome it. It wouldn't be so bad. It would be peaceful. And I'll– And I'll get to see my parents again...and Ron...and Ginny..."_

"_Stop!" cried Hermione, covering her ears. "Don't talk like that!"_

"_And it'll be over," finished Harry, who had continued as if he hadn't heard her. "Over. Done with."_

"_But Harry," she said, eyes now shining with tears. "Don't you want to live _life?"

_He gave a weak, sort of crooked half smile. "No thanks, Hermione," he said, shaking his head. "But I think I've lived enough of life."_

_And that was the last time she saw him. Harry and Lord Voldemort both died that night. And the wizarding world had remained leaderless and chaotic ever since._

Hermione's arm was now freckled with small red dots, each one oozing blood at a painfully slow pace, the tiny rivulets on her skin curling like roses. _But it's not enough. How could it _ever _be enough! _She glanced at her forearm again and thought bitterly, _My own little Dark Marks._

_For I survived and they were killed. No! NO! It shouldn't have been that way! It shouldn't BE that way! Why did I survive? Why? WHY? Is that betraying them? Have I dishonored them? How dare I?_

A tear slid down Hermione's cheek as she came to a conclusion:

_I am worse than the Death Eaters because I survived._

Others had survived, too, of course, but they hadn't been so close to them. So close to death.

Luna and Neville had married a few months ago, finally realizing the idea that had besieged their hearts all those years. Their first child was due in May; Healers said it was a boy, and Luna had once written Hermione saying that he would be named Harry Ronald. Hermione kept the letter in her bedside drawer, occasionally adding to the smudges. Envy would rip at her heart, but she ignored it, knowing that she could never have the life she had wanted. In her letter back to Luna, she had sincerely wished them all the best.

Remus eloped with Tonks during Hermione's seventh year at Hogwarts and they had remained blissfully happy ever since. However, Remus refused to have children and– much as Hermione knew that he would love one, or maybe even two– both she and Tonks saw the dangers of having a werewolf around children. They would visit on her birthday, and sometimes on Christmas, but left London very seldom. Hermione didn't mind. She was used to being alone, now.

Hermione was finished. She took a rag, wetted it, and ran it over her arm. When all the blood was wiped away, she clambered back into bed, promising herself that when she woke up she would throw away the remains of her teacup, still lying on the kitchen floor. As her eyes closed, she raised a prayer to God, or to any higher power, for that matter...

_If I could only hear their voices one more time..._

_**They spent their lifeblood willingly**_

_**So as to save all the rest and me**_

_**My arm I prick with a sense of doom**_

_**And remind myself of their blood flow'rs in bloom**_


End file.
